Retailer cuts a Jira and Freshservice bill by 34 percent
A national retailer ran Jira Service Management alongside Freshservice and was facing a tier upcharge on the Atlassian side. A credible Freshservice consolidation gave us the alternative. The estate closed at $2.7M from $4.1M, a 34 percent reduction, with the upcharge removed.
The situation
The retailer had landed in a common spot: two ITSM tools running in parallel, one inherited and one chosen, with neither vendor under any pressure to sharpen its pricing. Atlassian had signaled a tier upcharge at renewal, betting that the cost and disruption of moving would keep the client in place. On its own, that bet is usually right.
What changed the dynamic was that the client genuinely ran Freshservice too. That made consolidation onto a single platform a real option rather than a bluff, and a real option is the only kind that moves price. The work was to make the alternative credible, cost it honestly, and let the timing put the pressure back on the incumbent.
The levers we pulled
- Competitive leverage: an existing Freshservice deployment was developed into a costed, credible consolidation path, turning a second tool into a real alternative rather than a negotiating prop.
- Tier upcharge removed: with a genuine option on the table, the signaled Atlassian tier increase was taken off the renewal entirely.
- Switching cost quantified honestly, so the alternative held up under vendor scrutiny instead of collapsing as a bluff.
- Timing aligned so the evaluation ran while the client still owned the clock, keeping the pressure on the vendor through the close.
Before and after
The combined estate moved from $4.1M a year to $2.7M, a 34 percent reduction worth $1.4M annually. The headline change was the removal of the tier upcharge, but the deeper change was structural: a credible alternative now anchors every future renewal conversation.
No migration was required to capture the saving. The leverage came from the option being real, not from exercising it.
The outcome
The retailer closed at a materially lower run rate with the upcharge gone and a documented alternative it can use again at the next cycle. The lesson generalizes: you do not need to switch platforms to benefit from being able to. A credible, costed option is the lever.
This is the core of our competitive leverage work. See the ITSM Competitive Leverage Playbook for how to build the alternative without committing to the move.
Build the alternative, move the price.
500+ engagements. $420M+ negotiated. We make the competitive option credible so the incumbent sharpens the pencil, no migration required. Fixed fee or gainshare.
Build your leverage case →How did a retailer cut the bill by 34 percent without migrating?
By making a competitive alternative credible. The client already ran Freshservice, so a costed consolidation path turned a second tool into a real option. That option, not an actual migration, removed the Atlassian tier upcharge and brought the estate from $4.1M to $2.7M.
Do you have to switch platforms to get the saving?
No. The leverage comes from being able to switch, not from switching. A credible, honestly costed alternative changes the incumbent's incentive to hold price. In this case no migration was carried out and the saving was still captured.
The ITSM Negotiation Brief
Vendor moves, benchmark data, and renewal alerts for ITSM buyers.
Independent, buyer side ITSM contract negotiation. Fixed fee or gainshare. Not affiliated with any ITSM vendor.